Your begin.app
URL is pretty nice, but it's probably not as good as that great domain you've been wanting to use with your app. We've got you covered!
Begin allows you to add your domain to your Begin app through a simple process called domain mapping (also sometimes called host mapping).
Once mapped, you can always swap out your app's domains at any time, or get rid of them entirely – your old begin.app
URLs will always continue to work.
Domain mapping follows a simple process, and should only take a few minutes to get set up:
production
and staging
domainsIt's a lot faster and easier than it sounds, let's get started!
production
and staging
domainsThe first step in domain mapping is to enter the domains you'll be using.
Begin's first-class support for staging
environments means you'll need to add a staging
domain (or subdomain), too.
Say your domain is www.zombo.com
. We'd suggest keeping it simple and setting your staging
domain to staging.zombo.com
– but you can also opt to configure it to be zombostaging.net
, if you prefer.
In the next step, you'll enter the first two values in your DNS provider's interface, which will prove you own your domains and generate your SSL certificates.
In this step, you'll need to add two CNAME values to your DNS provider in order to verify your ownership of the domain(s), and generate your SSL certificates for HTTPS.
During the SSL verification step, the first part of name
gets entered as your CNAME subdomain, and the value is inputted as the value. For instance, when you're provided the following CNAME entry:
_2f9b34277e4b159e0beaa859e8802a93.www.example.com
_58cb94c5d71976edd03e8303fc1a126b.acm-validations.aws.
You'll add a CNAME subdomain of _2f9b34277e4b159e0beaa859e8802a93
within your example.com
zone, and set its value to _58cb94c5d71976edd03e8303fc1a126b.acm-validations.aws.
.
Due to the eventually consistent nature of DNS-based verification, it may take a few minutes for your changes to get picked up. Check back after a few minutes, and your values should be green, and you should be able to complete the next and final step.
If for some reason after more than a few minutes your domains haven't verified, make sure that you've correctly entered the settings into your DNS.
Should you continue to have trouble, please don't hesitate to reach out to support.
In the final step, you'll add the final two CNAME (or ALIAS, if you're using naked domains) values to your DNS provider. This points your domain at your Begin app.
For instance, when you're provided the following CNAME entry:
www.example.com.
pi1f6fddqd0dje.cloudfront.net
You'll add a CNAME subdomain of www
within your example.com
zone, and set its value to pi1f6fddqd0dje.cloudfront.net
.
Note: Begin does not presently verify you have correctly completed this step, so you may want to use a service like DNS Checker to validate your changes.
A naked domain (also referred to as a zone apex) is simply a domain set up to respond to requests without a subdomain. For example:
https://begin.com
is a web address using a naked domainhttps://docs.begin.com
has a subdomain, and is thus not a naked domainBegin supports mapping naked domains, but your current DNS provider needs to support it as well.
Specifically, your DNS provider requires the ability to add ALIAS
records (also sometimes called ANAME
, or A ALIAS
), in order to create a mapped naked domain.
Here are a few DNS providers that we are aware of that support ALIAS records for mapping naked domains:
If you aren't using a provider that supports ALIAS records, or you aren't sure, we suggest using a subdomain (such as www
) when mapping your Begin app's domain.
Something not looking right? No sweat, DNS can be finicky. If you need to hit the reset button, just click Start over
(or, if you've finished mapping your domain, Delete domain mapping
).
Your app will then be restored to its original yourappname.begin.app
URLs, and you'll be able to re-map your domain again.